The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit eBook

“We are,” replied the Captain. “Won’t
you stay to dinner? There isn’t anything
to eat but a can of tomato soup, but you’re welcome
to that.”

“Oh, we hadn’t better,” replied
Sahwah, “they will be wondering at home what
has become of us, and besides, it would make too much
trouble for you.”

“Too much trouble!” snorted the Captain.
“That’s just like a girl. As if a
girl ever cared how much trouble she made for a fellow!
Come on and stay, we want you. We’re lonesome.”

Thus pressed, the girls accepted the invitation, and
pretty soon they were all sitting in a circle under
the trees with cups and spoons in their hands, and
the Captain was singing at the top of his voice:

“Glorious, glorious,
One can of soup for the four of us,
Praises be, there are no more of us,
For the four of us can drink it all alone!”

Lunch over, they exchanged gossip under the trees
for a merry half hour, then the girls took their departure
and sped homeward to carry the news to Carver House.

CHAPTER X

THE OPENING CAREER OF MANY EYES

“Good morning, Winnebago friends,
With your faces as bright as mine,
Good morning, Winnebago friends,
You’re surely looking fine,
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,
If the pancakes don’t get you the
syrup must
Good morning, Winnebago friends,
With your faces as bright as,
Your faces as bright as, Your faces as
bright as mine!”

The Winnebagos, happy and hungry, gathered around
the breakfast table in answer to the summons which
Hinpoha had just sent echoing through the house.
With the advent of the Winnebagos at Carver House,
Nyoda’s melodiously chiming Japanese dinner
gong had been discarded in favor of a hoarse-throated
fish horn, which bore some similarity to the sound
of a bugle and was therefore to be preferred because
it had more of a military flavor.

“Where’s Sahwah?” asked Nyoda, noticing
that her place was vacant

Nobody knew.

Hinpoha blew a second blast of the horn up the stairway,
making a noise that would have waked the Seven Sleepers
with ease, but there was no answer.

“Sahwah must be out taking a morning walk,”
announced Hinpoha, when her horn blast had failed
to rout out the absentee, “she’s forever
exercising herself in the early morning hours—­as
if we didn’t get enough exercise doing military
drill! It’s no wonder she’s like a
beanpole. I would be, too, if I was forever trotting
the way she is. Here she comes now, tearing up
the walk like a racehorse!”

“She probably heard your horn on the other side
of the woods,” said Nyoda, laughing, “and
got here before it stopped blowing.”

Sahwah came in quite out of breath and evidently tremendously
enthusiastic about something.

“Nyoda,” she burst out as soon as she
was inside the door, “how fast would a Primitive
Woman go up and how many pounds would she pull?”